20 insightful cartoons about the future of books

The future of books will look brighter the moment you open your mind to imagination.

Will print books die? Or maybe ebooks will die sooner? Will we live in flats with no bookshelves, and cities with no bookstores? Will we forget how to turn pages in a book? Will robots do all the reading for us?

A cartoonist can often predict the course of events more precisely than the strategist. A cartoonist has a sharp mind and uses all his imagination to define the world in a few images rather than hundreds of excel sheets or presentation slides.

Let’s take the point of view of cartoonists, then, and forget for a moment about what analysts, strategists, and marketing gurus say.

Most of the cartoons in this overview are drawn by Tom Gauld, a Scottish cartoonist and illustrator whose works regularly appear in The New Yorker, The Guardian, New Scientist, and The New York Times. His wittiest literary cartoons are collected in his latest book, Baking with Kafka.

Other cartoons put together in this list were drawn by Grant Snider, John Atkinson, Jeff Koterba, and Jim Benton. We’ve also included our own cartoons, drawn by Piotr Kowalczyk, the founder of Ebook Friendly.

Cheer up. No matter where the book is heading, it will stay with us in one form or another.

A selection of the funny library cartoons and comic strips that will change the way you look at libraries and librarians. Cartoons by Tom Gauld, Ed Stein, Grant Snider, Mark Anderson, Scott Adams, among others.

20 cartoons about the future of books

1

E-bookmark. Bringing constant technological interruptions to all your books! A cartoon by Tom Gauld. ⇢ Credits and more info.

2-3

Abridged classics. Funny versions of classic novels for the Twitter-era readers. Created by an Ottawa-based cartoonist John Atkinson. ⇢ Credits and more info.

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